


Unsteady

by sifshadowheart



Series: Unsteady [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, Eventual Closed Polyamorous Relationship, F/M, Foursome - M/M/M/M, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hedonism, Lucifer Setting, M/M, Moresomes, Multi, Nephilim Harry Potter, Open Relationships, Powerful Harry, Slash, Supernatural Characters Borrowed, Threesome - M/M/M, tale of the three brothers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2019-07-07 15:43:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15911301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sifshadowheart/pseuds/sifshadowheart
Summary: No one expected that there was more to the Tale of the Three Brothers than a children's story.  Not even Harry.  That was, until, he met his third death and woke up having a conversation with the Archangel of Death herself who had a startling revelation regarding the origins of the tale and the purpose behind it.  Slash, A/U, Lucifer setting.





	1. Prologue: Harrigan

** Unsteady **

**A Harry Potter/Supernatural/Lucifer Crossover**

**_By Sif Shadowheart_ **

Unsteady

X Ambassadors

_Hold_  
Hold on  
Hold on to me  
'Cause I'm a little unsteady  
A little unsteady

_Hold_  
Hold on  
Hold on to me  
'Cause I'm a little unsteady  
A little unsteady

_Mama, come here_  
Approach, appear  
Daddy, I'm alone  
'Cause this house don't feel like home

_If you love me, don't let go  
If you love me, don't let go_

_Hold_  
Hold on  
Hold on to me  
'Cause I'm a little unsteady  
A little unsteady

_Hold_  
Hold on  
Hold on to me  
'Cause I'm a little unsteady  
A little unsteady

_Mother, I know_  
That you're tired of being alone  
Dad, I know you're trying  
To fight when you feel like flying

_If you love me, don't let go  
If you love me, don't let go_

_Hold_  
Hold on  
Hold on to me  
'Cause I'm a little unsteady  
A little unsteady

_Hold_  
Hold on  
Hold on to me  
'Cause I'm a little unsteady  
A little unsteady

_Hold_  
Hold on  
Hold on to me  
'Cause I'm a little unsteady  
A little unsteady

Disclaimer:  Harry Potter, Supernatural (TV) and Lucifer (TV) are the property of their respective owners, while the song “Unsteady” is copyrighters by: Unsteady lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Songs Music Publishing.

Author’s Note: So, how this happened is a bit funny.  In the process of writing _A Thousand Natural Shocks_ someone asked if Harry in that story (a club-owner) is anything like Lucifer from the TV show of the same name.  Having never seen it I had no idea and was curious.  And then the plunnies attacked.  This is the first of a three-part series in the crossover world that was spawned from that.  This is canon for Lucifer up to about six-months before the beginning of the show (meaning all of the backstory remains the same for the most part) while for HP we’re canon up to the Epilogue of Deathly Hallows so EWE for HP and all I’m taking from Supernatural is various characters and some background none of the actual story.  I’ve also changed things so that Sam from SPN is Gabriel/Loki instead of Lucifer’s vessel while Dean is Michael since I’m avoiding the whole vessel thing from SPN and going with Lucifer’s angels-and-demons-have-forms thing.  You don’t have to watch _Lucifer_ to understand the story since we’ll get into show events.

That said, enjoy!

**Warning!** This fic contains a lot of religious themes and references as well as a healthy amount of Slash.

**Prologue: Harrigan**

_Once upon a time…_

_Wait._

_No, that wasn’t right._

Time _._

_Time didn’t exist yet when this story began, so how could it_ be _‘once upon a time’ in the first place?_

_The Scribe cared about these sorts of semantics even if_ They _did not, though, granted, the Scribe had always spent more of that precious_ time _with Him than with Her._

_She cared little for stories after all or worrying over getting a tale just_ right _._

_All She cared about were Her children._

_Which, as She was the Goddess of All Creation, She had quite a few of._

_But, perhaps ‘in the beginning’ was a better turn of phrase than ‘once upon a time’, you never forgot your first anything, let alone your first children._

_When She and He created the Earth, it was of little interest to Her._

_It was just another of their endless creations, living but not_ alive _._

_Not like what, or rather_ who _came before._

_Their first true_ children _._

_Beings of fire and light and power, created in their images and with thoughts and emotions and sentience all their own._

_He named them ‘archangels’, which in retrospect was a flashing neon sign that He was planning more living creations instead of others that simply existed._

_She, however, game them_ names _._

_Their first born were twins, each perfectly balancing the other, and She named them Michael, a sop more to Her husband’s ego than anything else, but the second…the second She named Samael._

_Then came the others: Raphael, Gabriel, Azrael, Amenadiel, and last Uriel; Her children all._

_Her firstborn._

_They had other children between them, a whole Host of them and of varying power and ranks, though none ever came near the power of the firstborn, and She named every last one to the youngest of the Host, a sweet, curious seraphim dubbed Castiel._

_As Michael was the First, Castiel was the Last, though it wasn’t originally_ meant _that way._

_She would have been content to continue creating Their children with Him through all of…well…_ everything _._

_No, it wasn’t_ Her _choice in the end that Castiel was the last of Their children._

_It was His._

_For He had been tinkering with that little mudball They had created, filling it – sometimes with the help of Their more creation-bent firstborn – with creatures of all kinds until the very last of His creation, a so-called “special” creation._

_Man._

_Created in_ His _image alone, with none of Her at all._

_And then He_ dared _to command Her and Their children to_ love _the filthy creatures as they scrabbled around in the mud._

_Worse…He took Her son, Her Samael and forced Her Morning Star, Her_ Lightbringer _and made him the Prince of Hell, casting him down and forcing him into dominion over the place of punishment that He had created to chastise His new pets when they strayed and weren’t yet worthy of Heaven._

_Heaven._

Their home.

_Not enough that He took Their son and made him the jailkeeper over the worse of his damned pets but that He_ allowed _the foul creatures to contaminate Her home._

_In truth, humanity was lucky they survived the fights that came over Samael being renamed as Lucifer and sent down to the hell-plane to watch over them._

_Other species and planets and planes of existence weren’t nearly so lucky._

_But, Their children had done as they were asked and protected His newest creations from the destruction wrought by His partner, until the day came that the destruction grew too vast and He cast down another of His family, compounding His own betrayals by forcing Son to keep watch over Mother in Her punishment._

_No, ‘once upon a time’ wasn’t the right beginning at all._

_But then…this tale doesn’t begin_ at _the beginning either, for all that the beginning influenced it._

_Ah!_

_The Scribe had it!_

_It still wasn’t the_ exact _start of the story…but it would do._

_"There were once three brothers who were travelling along a lonely, winding road at twilight —"_

…

Harry James Potter was born of a mixture of wartime frenzy and young love.

Harrigan Mortemis was born of the ashes that fell to ground in the wake of another war and the realization that being deadly, dangerous, and above all _Dark_ was a mixture that was sure to send his former-self straight to Azkaban on a one-way ticket once the British Wizarding World reclaimed itself enough to stop lashing out at Death Eaters and go back to the former status-quo given that for all the high-minded speechifying of the newly installed Minister of Magic and his cabinet, nothing was _really_ changing.

Harrigan wasn’t a good, heroic, _Light_ warrior for the masses and martyr for the cause.

He was every inch the Dark, deadly, and dangerous creature that had been conceived on All Hallows, born into a war on the cusp of Lughnasadh, and forged in the crucible designed by his one-time mentor to create a martyr but had yielded a survivor instead.

With a bit of help from the goblins, who weren’t nearly as pissed as he’d thought given that they were able – with his approval – take the cost of repairs out of the estate of Bellatrix LeStrange, Harry died and Harrigan was born, claiming the entirety of the estates of those he’d destroyed as spoils of war whilst the Black estate was left under their watchful eyes and skillful management in trust for one Teddy Lupin.

The fallout of that alone would have given him the impetus to move on if nothing else.

There was nothing like watching those who’d espoused their friendship for years shriek and scramble at being left out of his beneficiaries and made unable to profit off of Teddy the way they’d thought to profit off of _him_ should he “do his duty” and die in a hail of spellfire.

Only the shouting and frustration of the Ministry when _they_ couldn’t lay claim to the estates of the war criminals was better entertainment in Harrigan’s opinion, even if he’d been watching said entertainment from the safety of France.

The _Prophet_ , if one knew how to read it, as well as the _Quibbler_ were quite informative in this way.

All the goblins had had to do was set up his new identity and participate with a bit of slight-of-hand on his accounts, which given that they were being underhanded at his _behest_ was a nice bit of sport for the greedy buggers.

Harrigan got his first tattoo the day after it had all been settled, once the accounts had cleared and the properties and investments all been sold off, his funds managed by Gringotts but strictly mundane in nature rather than neck-deep in the Wizarding World as they’d once been, that tattoo the first of many he’d collect over the coming years, many meaningful others simple decoration or distraction from the others, ending up by the time he found himself sipping a tumbler of Odgen’s in his latest flat, taking a brief respite from his wanderlust, and staring down his ultimate patron in the furnished loft in New Orleans, he was inked from his neck to his feet, the latter being one of the few completely blank pieces of canvas he’d yet to put a tattoo gun loose upon.

That first tattoo, of a vial of Liquid Luck in “traditional” tattoo style done in Paris to cover his remnant of Umbitch on his hand that covered most of his right hand and wrist, was the beginning.

It most certainly wasn’t the end.

For her part, Azrael, the archangel of Death, seemed less than amused with what he’d gotten up to in the fifteen years since they first met.

For his part, Harrigan was less than amused himself.

The reason?

He had just celebrated his thirty-fifth birthday…and he looked as if he hadn’t aged a day since that meeting, still as downy-cheeked and bright-eyed as he’d been at twenty.

They’d met in Moscow, directly after a then-twenty Harrigan, newly freed from his “duty” in England and touring Europe for the last two years had gotten into a rough-and-tumble with some idiots outside of a bar who’d been bashing and looking to kill if he knew anything about it which given his history he did, a young gay tourist.  The rough-and-tumble hadn’t been much of anything for him, just a couple of mean drunks.  Only…eventually everyone’s luck ran out when they jumped head-first into trouble.

He was no different.

A lucky punch, a wrong fall, a blow to the head, and _poof_ , Harrigan found himself once more standing in King’s Cross Station only _this_ time he hadn’t been greeted by Dumbledore but by Azrael herself.

…

_Nowhere, 2000_

“If you were _literally_ anyone else.”  The voice was definitely feminine, low and smooth with more than a little exasperation filling it though Harry didn’t recognize the strange accent, turning on a dime to face the direction from whence it came in the blindingly-white room, though not expecting what he found.

A stranger given the voice had been a given.

It was a difference from the last go-around he’d had in this place of in-between but not startling.

After all, it wasn’t like this was the first time he’d died…and if his instincts were right it wasn’t going to stick any better this time than it had the last.

She was beautiful in a timeless way that would appeal to most, let alone a young wizard who’d become a bit of a hedonist in his heady freedom wanderlust as he jumped from place to place as the whim and wind took him.  A long fall of rich black hair disappeared behind her back and almost melted into the shadows surrounding her.  Her mouth was full, her skin dusky and bronzed, eyes flashing and dark.  She wore a strange mixture of clothes, long lines in leather that fell and swept around her legs and feet but clung to her torso and chest in a near-armor appearance.  A sword was sheathed at her right hip.

And from her back swept massive wings in an endless black tinged with a hint of lush aubergine along the edges.

_“_ You would be dead now, Harrigan.”  She continued her scold, ignoring his appraising – and appreciative – glance.

“But I’m not anyone else.”  He noted, emerald eyes shining under the bright light of the otherwise white station, moving to stand on the dividing line in the tile between the white station and the inky shadows that surrounded her.  “And I have a feeling that you’re going to explain why that matters.”

“How’d you guess?”  She quirked a bit of a smile.

“Not my first go at this, dove.”  Harry smiled back, the movement of his lips as blackly sardonic as his words.  “Which is you are who I think you might be you’re already well aware.”

“Well.”  Azrael grinned brightly, flashing white teeth that tapered to petite fangs at her canines.  “I’ve never said you were an idiot though you gave it a go at appearing that way more than once.  Ginny Weasley?”  She snorted.  “Really?”

“Love potions and hormones are a dangerous combination.”  Harry shrugged it off.  “I got clear of it eventually.”

“That you did.”  Azrael nodded, her heavy weight of thick black hair shifting and nearly blocking the side of her face from view before settling back in place.  “You fought your battles, your destiny, the design of fate and you won free.”  Her smile never faded for an instant.  “You have no _idea_ how hard that is to accomplish or why it’s so impressive that you managed it, do you?”

“Given the big-ass birthmark that showed up on my upper back when I woke up from my last little detour to this lovely bit of nowhere.”  Harry waved his hands at the walls of the Station.  “In the mark of the Hallows I think I might have a bit of an idea.”

Since it was the second thing he’d covered with a tattoo, with the point laying over where his cervical – neck – vertebrae transitions to his thoracic vertebrae, down his back between his shoulder blades and bottoming out just under them, the tattoo artist he’d picked turning what he’d thought was scarring into a specifically chosen and designed combination of the Mark of the Hallows and the illustration he’d taken of Death from the _Tales of Beetle the Bard_ , making it stand out a shit-ton less around any wizarding folk that might see his back than a _brand_ of the Hallows, he was more than familiar with the implications that had arisen from him waking up alive instead of dead from under Tom’s Killing Curse.

Not that he’d shared them, but it had given him a bit of a nudge towards disappearing before someone decided he was too dangerous and dark and _unkillable_ to live free and outside of Azkaban.

“And what ideas might those be?”

“Given the,” he gestured vaguely towards her wings.  “And the,” then his back, “I’m going with Angel of Death and that there was a whole lot more towards the Tale of the Three Brothers than it said on the tin.”

“ _Arch_ angel of Death, actually.”  Azrael corrected, still smiling.  “My name is Azrael…and you are the last of my Nephilim descendants.”

Harry blinked, rocking back a bit on his heels as his mind clicked together the puzzle pieces and implications of _that_ for a minute.

“Huh.”  He said after a long moment, Azrael content to let him take as long as he needed.  “I figured a mutation or that we were created this way.  Didn’t figure on us all being descended from, well,” a flick of his hand toward his self-proclaimed ancestress.  “You know.”

“Oh, you’re not.”  Azrael gave a tinkling laugh that sent a shiver of comforting warmth coasting down his spine.  “Not as a people anyway, though the wizarding world’s ability to use magic came from the archangels it wasn’t _bred_ into you.  No, I’m afraid that you’re once more unique, Harry.”

“Oh goody.”  He sighed.  “Just what I always wanted.”  He narrowed his eyes, thinking once more.  “In that case I’m going with either the Three Brothers were your kids or you gave Ignotus a _hell_ of a lot more than a Cloak to take home.”

“Third time’s the charm.”  Azrael reached out and brushed one hand through his shaggy black hair.  “I gave him my Cloak, yes, telling him to pass it down to our son.  A piece of me to bring safety and comfort as anything else I could give would draw _far_ too much attention from my Father and people.”

“Aren’t your people, the angels, your siblings?”  Harry asked, intent on ignoring the rest of what she said…for the moment anyway.  There’d be plenty of time to freak out over his ancestor hooking up with an archangel later.  Much later.  _If_ he was going to survive his latest death anyway.

“Meh.”  She rolled her eyes, shrugging her wings.  “Depends on how you look at it.  We were all _created_ by the same deities: yes.  Given form and function and duties.  But there’s literally _legions_ of us.  Other than a few of them I consider my brothers and sister it really isn’t like that.” She smirked.  “It’s not like we have a genetic relationship to worry about, we were spoken into being out of nothing.  The only commonality is that Mother and Father made us, we recognize _that_ relationship above all others second only to any children we might have had in the meantime.”

“Okay…”  Harry drawled, blinking.  “I follow that, I’m pretty sure.  Like being foster kids, you all decide what you are and aren’t to each other.”

“Precisely.”  Azrael nodded.  “Some like Amenadiel, Raphael, and Uriel consider all of us brethren.  Others like myself and Samael choose, then Michael and Gabriel don’t recognize a familial relationship but one not unlike compatriots, and Metatron doesn’t recognize a relationship between us at all.”

“Huh.”  Harry pursed his lips then shrugged.  Heavenly politics was not what he’d expected when he’d woken up in Kings Cross but sadly enough stranger things had happened to him in his life.  “Good thing I’m not religious or I’d probably be having a break down or crisis of faith right now.  That said, I doubt you’re here because a bigot got in a good punch and I cracked by skull open on a dumpster.”

“No.”  Azrael narrowed her eyes on him, smile finally disappearing from her lovely face.  “I’m not here because you died or to explain ancient family history but to take advantage of the opportunity your death provided to meet with you and explain a few other things.”

“Like that being the Master of Death isn’t what it says on the tin?”

“Yes, exactly like that.  The Three Brothers Peverell were necromancers of extreme power and skill.  I gave each of them a token as requested and as we’ve discussed Ignotus a bit more than that.  As the Archangel of Death any of my Nephilim children would have been hunted to the ends of the Earth by angels and demons alike.  The Cloak helped hide them and the tale diffused any interest that would be taken in them or suspicion regarding their heritage.  A children’s tale, nothing more and nothing less became the best defense against those that would hurt or harm them for almost a thousand years.”

“Until me.”

“Until you.”  Azrael slowly blinked.  “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because to protect the child I had with Ignotus I bound the Nephilim power that should have passed to our son to three objects and Ignotus swore to see that they would never be reclaimed by a single child of ours.”  She let out a breath too slow to be a sigh.  “Only even the most powerful necromancer to ever live couldn’t read all of the futures of the world or anticipate a meddler who would work to undo all that we’d done to protect our children.”

Harry blanched, the implications of that having him weaving in shock as he locked his knees to keep them from buckling.

“You mean…”

“Yes.”  Azrael told him with sundering finality.  “When you united the Hallows you set yourself on a collision course with transitioning into being a Nephilim with a single safeguard preventing it.”

“My death.”  Harry laughed humorlessly, incredulous at the turn his life – and death – had taken.  “Third time’s the charm.”  He closed his eyes, shaking his head.  “Is there anything human left in me now?”

“Human yes.”  Azrael told him with a sigh.  “ _Mortal_ …no.”

…

_New York City, 2015_

There was more to it than that of course.

That conversation in the in-between had taken an eternity and no time at all while they came – both of them for all that Azrael had seemed unshakable in the beginning – to terms with what his unique flair for defying all sanity, reason, and logic to do the impossible meant _this_ time.

It started with his inability to die and stay dead and ended somewhere with his unaging nature.

He’d not died since, taking more care than before now that he knew he _would_ survive.

Not because he didn’t want to see her in the in-between or listen to a scold.

But because he had no desire to spend _any_ amount of time as a lab experiment either in a muggle lab or the Department of Mysteries and if it got out that he was unkillable _that_ was exactly where he’d end up and one of the original worries that had driven him from his native shores.

For her part Azrael had left him in peace, or whatever facsimile of it he could find, as her own worries about him being hunted hadn’t lost any veracity in the years between the birth of her only child and the birth of the last of her line.

Azrael wasn’t one of the others, _her_ absence from the Heavens tended to draw attention.

That wasn’t to say she’d left him without protection.

No, not when she alone wielded a weapon that would work against even the greatest of her kind.

And not when her descendant knew how to bend the powers of creation, what his kind called magic, to create a flawless copy of Azrael’s Blade, a weapon that didn’t just _kill_ but wiped those who found themselves upon it out of existence entirely.  No heaven.  No hell.  Just gone.  Harry’s copy couldn’t do the same: he was a Nephilim with magical training not God or Goddess, but it _looked_ and felt the same.

That was very much the point given that in the absence of a divine war Azrael hadn’t needed to bare her Blade in eons.

Her last child on the other hand was in much more danger of needing the protection it offered.

It wasn’t a sword, not really, the blade all of a foot long with a hilt in the shape of her wings and a simple leather-wrapped hold.

That didn’t make it any less deadly.

In the hands of someone like Harry who knew how to use it, it was the single best defense against those who would use him or try and wipe him from existence himself that she could give him short of complete ignorance of his very existence.  A fool’s dream, that.  He would only grow _more_ powerful with time as he used and became at ease with the power he’d been given by birth and fate.

Harry Potter had been powerful.

Harrigan Mortemis could end and create worlds when he came into the fullness of his power.

As such, Azrael had never risked coming to see him in person, making him more than a little leery of what she wanted.

“What do you want, Azrael?”  He finally asked after they’d been staring each other down for long moments.  “More good news of legions of souls that would like to see me erased from the fabric of existence?”

“Not quite.”  She smirked at him and stepped from the shadows of the late evening sun, her wings hidden with a thought then lowering herself to sit opposite his spot on his lounge chair on its twin on the other side of his loft fireplace.  “I need your help.”

Inky black brows under a messy ebony undercut clipped close on the sides and back of his head rose.

“You have my attention.”

If the Archangel of Death needed _his_ help to the point of being willing to endanger him by her very presence, it _must_ be quite the juicy bit of gossip.

Knowledge was what kept him breathing and under the radar of the bastards who would hunt him whether they had feathers or smelled of sulfur and brimstone.

“My Father has a _design_.”  Azrael rolled her eyes.  “One that I, and others, disagree with but are unable to put a stop to.”

“Given that you risk your wings and powers being stripped from you,” Harry clucked his tongue in dismay.  “Let alone your very life if you move against him I could see that being a problem.  How does this involve or matter to me in anyway?”

“It doesn’t.”  Azrael’s eyes lit with cunning fire.  “No one can take you into account because you’re not supposed to exist, even I never thought my line would end in a Nephilim.  A Nephilim that due to your human roots can’t be undone with a thought less my Father break his own rule of Free Will.”

“A Nephilim that could muck up his design and have it be waved off as the consequences of the same.”  Harry followed the thought, rolling it over in his mind as he did the same with the Ogden’s over his tongue before swallowing in pleasure.  He always _did_ enjoy fighting fate.  His very life was a testament to that.  “But why should I care?  If it doesn’t effect me.”

“Because I’ve _looked_.”  Azrael leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees as she stated her case.  “And it _does_ involve someone you, if you knew him, wouldn’t want to see harmed, not like this.”

“You’re going to have to explain that bit.”

“One of my brothers, as it stands now.”  Azrael explained.  “Is destined to destroy another.  One he cares for and sees as kin.  All part of Father’s grand design.  If he’s allowed to walk the path my father has been laying down before him for _eons_ then he will never meet you.  And that is unacceptable to me.”

“Why?”  Harry arched a brow in question.  “You’ve told me before that some of the Host fight with each other, that they’ve killed each other before.  How is this different?  Because of me in some vague portent way?”

“Because _he_ ,” Azrael told him with a slow grin.  “Is meant for _you_.  And if you let him walk this path he will fall not just from his place as an Archangel but in love with another and be forever out of your reach. If I know anything about you, my darkling, it’s that you don’t like others touching what’s _yours_.”

...


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is really short but this fic fights me like nobody's business so I'm just happy to have something to add to it at all.

** Unsteady **

_Author’s Note: As a reminder we’re still pre-series at the moment, since the Lucifer (TV) S1 doesn’t pick-up until Fall-ish 2016…I think._

_Devil Devil by MILCK_

**Chapter One: Lux**

_In the beginning, the archangel Lucifer was cast out of Heaven and condemned to rule Hell for all of eternity._

_Until he decided to take a vacation._

_…_

_New York City, Harrigan’s Loft, 2015_

“How are you going to handle my brother?”  Azrael asked, watching out of dark eyes as her last descendant stared into the flames of his fireplace after he’d agreed to derail her father’s evil little plot for her family.

Harry gave a dark chuckle.

“Which one?”

As from what he could tell, he was about to be embroiled in enough heavenly drama to keep him busy handling her brothers for quite some time.

Azrael scoffed, wrinkling her nose at her tat’d-upped protégé.

“You know which one, Harrigan.”

“Leave that up to me, Azrael.”  He told her, taking one last sip of the Ogden’s in his glass and setting it aside.  “If he’s as hedonistic as you make him out it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“ _Getting_ his attention, no.”  Azrael rolled her eyes.  Lucifer really was taking the seven deadly sins a bit too seriously.  Especially lust.  Even for the devil himself reveling in complete hedonism _had_ to wear thin after a while.  “Keeping it on the other hand is likely to be a problem, he’s had the attention span of a goldfish since before there _were_ goldfish.”

“That’s my problem.”  Harry shrugged, standing and wandering towards his desk to get the plans rumbling through his mind in the works.  “I’ll figure something out given that you manage to do your part and keep your old man from smiting me for ruining this little _meet cute_ he’s trying to set up for his bouncing baby boy and said baby boy’s walking Kryptonite.”

…

_Los Angeles, January 2016_

Harrigan didn’t bother with a Bel-Air mansion or a Malibu beach house, choosing instead what he was comfortable with from his travels: a downtown loft with views of the city.  The penthouse, naturally, lest his target believe him after his wealth, with industrial features in copper pipes and brick, floors in bright marble, and a massive bedroom balcony overseeing it all with skylights that showed the sky and even the stars when the smog wasn’t too bad.  It was furnished sparsely.  He’d never been one to collect objects, given that he’d had so little for so long.

A panorama of the ocean off of Fiji.

A pair of chairs beside the fireplace he’d had installed before moving in.

A few pictures of himself and his parents from before everything fell apart in a trio of Killing Curses.

Not much.

But enough to be comfortable and in the end that was all that mattered.

While Harrigan was working on his move, his other plans were in motion, starting with the private investigator he’d had look into one Lucifer Morningstar.

 _That_ had made him laugh.

There was nothing quite like using the truth as a weapon and it seemed Lucifer, beloved brother of Azrael, was better at it than most.

Which, given that he was the King of Hell, was to be expected he supposed.

Still, there were a few things the PI had found that Harrigan could use to his advantage above and beyond his hedonistic nature.

Not that he was one to talk but he supposed in that they’d be evenly matched.

Azrael had known just which button to push.

He always _had_ been possessive of what was his.

Willing to share, of course, but not to give away what was meant to be _his_ without a fight.

No, he had a decent idea of how to start getting Lucifer’s attention.

After all, Harrigan wasn’t the _only_ one around who had a hard, almost impossible even, time turning his back on a dare.

…

_Lux, Two Weeks Later_

_“Devil, devil…”_

The bass hook had him before Lucifer even exited his personal elevator down to the club-level of his club Lux.

And if it hadn’t, the lyrics coming from a sultry tenor would have done even before he rounded the bar and caught sight of the siren casting their spell over the handful of club patrons from the narrow stage at the far side of the club opposite the bar that Mazikeen was manning in the hours before the club really got going.

She was also, apparently, holding auditions of some kind for a performer that they’d been sadly lacking since Lucifer had made a deal with one of their waitresses/singers that catapulted her into fame.

_“Clever devil, devil…”_

Lucifer drank in the sight of the masculine beauty across the room as he sat on a barstool on the other side of the bar from Maze who handed off an already poured scotch with a knowing smirk.

_“How quickly they do sell their souls…for the feast and the promise of gold…”_

As if sensing his entrance, the singer looked up from making love to the old fashioned microphone Lucifer preferred and eyes in a nearly electric emerald green locked on his own black.

An ensnarement of the oldest kind, if Lucifer had ever felt one.

 _“But devil,”_ a lush mouth curved wickedly.  _“That won’t be me.”_

“Harrigan Mortemis.”  Mazikeen reported lowly as they watched the singer pick up the tempo in sync with the tempting song that was – dare he say – nothing short of a challenge even if the singer didn’t know in _whose_ club he was singing.  “A bit of a nomad, wanders from country to country living off of an inheritance of some kind.”

“Well, he’s a naughty one, isn’t he?”  Lucifer mused.  Even from across the room he could see the tattoos on the front of the singer’s neck and peeking out from the opened buttons of his darkest black shirt and on hands and forearms bared by rolled up sleeves.  There was no way to tell if the ink went lower or was elsewhere thanks to skin-tight black leather trousers, but given the neck tattoo is was likely.

_“Do not try me devil devil_

_Cannot buy me devil devil_

_You won't make a fool of me oh no_

_What makes you so special special_

_to think I would ever settle_

_For that devious dance between you and me devil devil…”_

“There’s something off about him.”  Maze told him seriously even as she smirked at his obvious fascination at the newest sparkly to catch his interest.  “I don’t know what it is but I don’t like it.”

“Whatever could you mean?”  Lucifer barely glanced away from eating up the sensual singer with his eyes.

“I tried to _persuade_ ,” Maze emphasized the word, referencing her minor ability to sway humans.  “Him to take off his shirt.”

“Mazikeen you bad girl.”  Lucifer tsked jokingly.

“No, Lucifer, you’re not listening.”  Maze hissed, eyes narrowing as the song finished and the singer took his bows before easily jumping off the stage and heading over their way.  “I _tried_ to persuade him and _it didn’t work_.  He’s immune to my power.”

“Hmm, now that _is_ interesting.”  Lucifer mused, still half-caught up in running his eyes up a long and lean leather and silk clad form and cataloging the intriguing flashes of inked skin.  As an angel, if one who’d clipped his own wings, he couldn’t get a tattoo anymore than he could be physically harmed in the first place.  “I wonder if he’s immune to _all_ powers and if so just why that is…”

“You don’t think…?”

“Dad?”  Lucifer snorted lightly, then reaching into his jacket and pulled out his cigarette case before lighting one up and tucking it back away.  “Not likely.  _He’d_ send someone into my path that was all sunshine and morals, not someone who so clearly doesn’t mind treading at least a bit on the wild side like our new singer.”

“ _Our_ new singer?”  Maze arched a brow.

“Well, _my_ new singer.”  Lucifer corrected with an idle wave of his hand.  “Semantics darling.”

Maze rolled her eyes as the singer with his messy undercut and golden skin – where it wasn’t inked – sauntered to a stop mere inches away from Lucifer, his own gaze equally as rapacious on the devil’s form as the devil’s were on his own.

“You’re the boss.”  She allowed.

“Yes, yes I am.”  Lucifer agreed, smiling charmingly up at the singer and offering his free hand after setting aside his empty scotch tumbler.  “Lucifer Morningstar, _ever_ so delighted to meet you Mister Mortemis.”

“Harrigan, please.”  Lucifer found himself ever more charmed by a flashing playful grin and an accent so upper-crust British it made his seem like an affectation.  Which it _was_ , but still.

“Harrigan, then.”  Another flashing smile as Lucifer held onto the offered hand between his own palms and leaned into the singer’s personal space.  “Tell me, darling.  What is it you truly desire?”

Lucifer expected many things to come from that question and not one of them would’ve surprised him.

Except, that is, what he got in answer.

Harry tossed his head back with a laugh and tugged his hand free from Lucifer’s hold, no sign of his world having been lit on fire with a single touch from who his patron swore was supposed to be _his_ showing in his face or form.

“Oh, my darling devil.”  Harrigan’s eyes danced with shadows for only a moment – but it was more than enough as Lucifer’s eyes dilated at the sight even as his resistance to the seductive power Lucifer had been created with was easily fended off by Harrigan’s mental shields.  “Tsk tsk.  Weren’t you listening?  You’ll have to do _much_ better than that if you want to know what it is I _desire_ above all.”

With a cheeky wink and smirk, he blew the stunned pair of Lucifer and Maze a kiss and sauntered away, calling back over his shoulder.

“I charge a thousand per performance and require at least seventy-two hours notice.  Ta, love.”

“Mazikeen, I want one.”

Maze snorted, rolling her eyes once more at her ridiculous boss.

He was the _devil_.

And yet there he sat shocked and stunned by a…whatever Harrigan Mortemis was.

“You heard the man.”  She told him, unimpressed, as she flicked the background check on their – or so it seemed – new performer for Lux.  “A grand and three days’ notice and you can have him – or at least his voice – for a night.”

…

 


End file.
